Innovation And Creativity In Organizations: An Essay.

Creativity is defined as the capability of conceiving some useful things that are taken into consideration for the betterment of the organization; however, innovation signifies the implementation of something new (Anderson et al. 2014).Stimulating creativity and exploring completely new territories enhances the productivity and profitability of the organization. Somech and Drach-Zahavy (2013) state that contemporary organizations encourage their employees to suggest some productive ideas and to explore new areas for innovative approaches that help in formulating cost-effective business solutions. The primary objective of this approach is to make the employee of the origination feel as they are an important asset for the business and their suggestion will be granted. Moreover, according to Yoshida, et al. (2014), there are three types of innovation- technical innovation, process innovation and administrative innovation. This way, an organization can achieve competitive edge to survive in the market for a longer time.

In this essay-report, the nature of the creativity and innovation will be discussed along with the theory and practice for creativity and innovation. Moreover, the report also covers some evidence/examples that results in the better productive result on the better business outcome. In addition to that, the impact of the creativity and innovation will be focused along with the key ingredients of the successful innovation that are- Leadership, Focus, Creativity, Invention, and Entrepreneurship. Lastly, the assignments wraps up with the personal reflection and then a conclusion for the overall discussion.

The nature of creativity and innovation are connected and creativity goes hand in hand with innovation. Cerne et al. (2013) depicts that without creativity there will be no innovation. Creativity is beneficial for well-run companies and provides an assured path to success, which results in maximum profitability and productivity. Creative ideas and innovative approaches can come from employees, external shareholders and even from the target group (Caniels and Rietzschel 2013). Thus, it is important that an open exchange of ideas must have to be supported by the organization. On the contrary, Sarooghi et al. (2015) depicts that if the innovative idea does not fit properly with the objective of the organization, huge loss should have to be incurred by the company as the entire process will get wrong with the unfit idea. As a result, most contemporary managers follow incremental innovation that is to see problems in the current set-up and then try to resolve the adversity by finding an innovative alternate method. Yesil and Sozbilir (2013) in addition to the discussion added that most larger organisations rarely uses radical innovations as they are often risky and difficult to implement.

Creativity is a process and often considered as a group phenomenon, where an individual implies the domain knowledge and then discusses it with their peers so that an effective idea will be selected at the end of the meeting.

In this context, Runco (2014) demonstrates that lateral thinking, TRIZ and mind-maps are few approaches that encourage the rational creativity among the individuals. Lateral thinking signifies the offering of ideas through random component in reasoning. This method is different from linear thinking and is used to materialize the reasoning attitudes. Moreover, TRIZ techniques intend to initiate technological innovation. According to this approach, a person first looks for the pitfalls regarding the execution of a new technology in the business and then implements it (Dietrich and Haider 2015). Moreover, Litchfield et al. (2014) stated that mind-maps are the technique to summarise the existing knowledge and then gather ideas and information that meets the objective of that organization.

It is evident that every person intends to learn more under interesting circumstance and hence, managing authorities of organization takes initiatives for gaming approach for encouraging their creative ideas. Frame games, innovation games, LEGO blocks and game storming are few examples of boosting the creativity in the workplace. Oravec (2015) depicts that frame games emphasize on the interactive activities for training situations or brainstorming. Additionally, fun activities and formulating roadmaps are the basic steps in the innovation games approach. In context of the LEGO blocks, the cubes are used for analysing the estimated real situation after implementation of the idea to generate insights and ideas more easily (Payton 2015).

This method comprises of the approaches of brainstorming and brain-writing where a question is generated among the team members in a meeting and members will present many ideas within less times without any sponsorship (Bucherer et al. 2012). On the other hand, Amabile (2012) portrays that participatory innovation is another approach in this techniques the concept of “idea boxes” and “idea intranets” was introduced.

In comparison with the rational creativity, this technique emphasizes on the approach of shifting problem from the analogies. Gaut (2012) also portrays that experts believe that if a person distance themselves from the problematic situation, the chances for resolving the circumstance with innovative idea becomes high. Distanciation phase and ideation phase are the major components of this theory that signifies that the distortion and transformation of problem stimulates the imagination, which will help in the better solution regarding a problem. However, in ideation process, Tomyuk and Томюк (2014) depicts the perception that one must follow a certain track and try to think innovative ideas until a useful solution will not be suggested. The basic principle behind this theory is “to turn ideas into positive solution”.

Rice (2013) states that technical innovation involves in the formulation of new goods and services and is occurred through research and development efforts so that the customer satisfaction can be achieved with new, better, faster and/or cheaper products. On the other hand, Camison and Villar-Lopez (2014) defines that systematic application of scientific knowledge for transforming resources into products are the objectives of technological innovation.

The process innovation signifies the new ways for producing, selling or distributing goods so that the distribution process can be accomplished in lesser time. Davenport (2013) depicts that the process innovation is helpful for small firms as they can take references from the larger firm’s advanced technology. Hollen et al. (2013) often criticizes that the process innovation has the limitation of investments when new products tend to put forward for further development.

Administrative innovation demotes the creation of a new organizational design that is suggested by the managing authorities of the organization for better creation, production and delivery of products (Reinhold et al. 2015). This includes the leadership quality that is implemented in the workplace for better productivity. Leaders have to encourage their employee intrinsically and reward them according to their innovative ideas so that they keep on thinking and suggesting new ideas that will be beneficial for the organization.

Yoshida, et al. (2014) mentioned that innovation and creativity are interrelated and hence encouraging innovation must have to follow the basics of creativity that are- expertise, creative thinking skills and motivation. The leader plays a crucial role for encouraging their employees to come up with new and innovative ideas and motivates their employee by not criticizing, judging, discouraging and evaluating the negative outcome of the suggested ideas (Slatten and Mehmetoglu 2015). Cerne et al. (2013) also affirms that the contemporary leaders must welcome the absurd, crazy ideas by analysing the outcome with their experience so that some innovative ideas can be formulated.

Camison and Villar-Lopez (2014) suggests that, if workplace is a stage for experimenting for better productivity and profitability, the approach for working should be the chief objective, Hence, it is important to focus on achieving the primary goal for the organization that is to increase their sales and results in high prosperity. For instance, OSIM international, which is a Singapore based organization starts their business by manufacturing knifes and other household products but their focus is to comfort the communities with their products and to attain high profits. This organization then stand up with the idea to provide comfort to people who need extra care of their bodies and initiated to manufacture massing products (Ganter and Hecker 2014).

Sacramento et al. (2013) states that there are some primary reason that encourages the working personnel in the workplace by making time for brainstorming or placing suggestion boxes around the workplace. Managers can also train their staff in innovation techniques brainstorming, lateral thinking and mind-mapping. Creativity can be supported by tolerate mistakes, reward creativity and then act on ideas.

Figure 1: Creativity and innovation in entrepreneurship

(Source: Qian 2013)

Carland and Carland (2015) depicts that creativity is the ability to develop new ideas in order to provide a new perception towards a problematic situation while innovation is the application of those creative solution so that the life of community can be enhanced. Qian (2013) in addition to that portrays that entrepreneurship is the combination of the both the creativity and innovation and a systematic procedure for applying the two approaches.

Experts introduce creativity and innovation for better productivity and financial growth. Guler and Nerkar (2012) illustrates that with effective creativity, workforce can easily generate new ideas compatible with the objective set by the organization. The implementation of creation and innovation also results in an environment that encourages knowledge-based capital and increase their market share by implementing the same. Moreover, Im et al. (2013) depicts that innovation in the workplace also brings transformation in strong and efficient innovative diffusion of knowledge for the betterment of the organization. Moreover, Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer (2014) stated that creativity exhibited by innovative theories and principle puts the concerned organization in positions of leadership compared to originations in the same field. In order to achieve this success stage, the organization has to spend some revenue on R&D departments where an origination can research for new inventions so that the existing products can be improved along with the formulation of new products.

In addition to that, innovation companies also have the advantage of experience for product development. de Araujo Burcharth et al. (2014) describes that this innovative approaches can be obtained by welcoming the trial and error methods and encouraging employees to take risks for designing better products and services. Lastly, Lee et al. (2012) added further that introduction of creativity results in name recognition within their respective industries. These business or companies do not have to spend much on their promotion as their brand themselves enough for their popularity. For instance, apparels like Lululemon, Zara, and the luxury carmaker Rolls-Royce do not advertise their products due to their strong word-of-mouth campaigns advertisements and 110-year-old sales record until the year 2015 respectively. Barnett et al. (2014) on the affirmative side also adds that Managers who promote an innovative environment analyses the motivation factor in the working personnel for building stronger teams, strategic partnerships, organizational restructuring and senior management support.

Small companies will have modest open innovation efforts and they have must have to find ways to interact efficiently with in-sighting market, competition and new technology that supports their innovation efforts. One such example is the case of “UBER rides”, whose CEO Travis Kalanick is known as serial entrepreneur and had presented an innovative idea for making the social life of the individual easy. Kolker et al. (2016) depicts that the incident begins from the difficulty that has arise while facing difficulty in hailing a cab. As a result, the person utilizes the technological innovation for formulating a business and help people hiring a taxi on a single tap of a button. The business not only provides the social people with transport facility but the business also represent a flexible new way to earn money for the drivers (Fisk 2014).

Another example is the case of Northern Colorado, where Emil Motycka a 21 years old earned a revenue of $135,000 during senior year of high school and started the business organization named Motycka Enterprises, LLC ; however, now the name is Emil’s Lawn. The concerned person provides everything from building and janitorial maintenance like tree care, lawn care, and Christmas light installation and snow removal services in order to help people with their extra work. Ayala and Manzano (2014) depicts that in this case, the person utilize the innovative idea with a creative objective that is simple yet important. Due to simplicity of these business objectives, it is challenge for Emil Motycka but the business gained a huge success and become a successful entrepreneur at the age of 21. The person at a small age utilizes the simple idea to create a business and expand it for gaining profit in low expenses. The origination provides services to known customers and this business does not need much skills (Fiet et al. 2013).

Moreover, another example for a small business to be the most innovative and successful organization is  VisionQuest 20/20 that not only considered the innovation for being successful but they also targeted the most unusual group of the society- visually challenged children. The organization is a nonprofit organization established by Dr. James W. O'Neil and engineer Richard S. Tirendi, who are working collaboratively for helping vision problems in children. The major concern of these businesspersons is that there is no advanced equipments beyond the eye-chart stage; however, they have formulated a new software called EyeSpy 20/20 that assesses children's vision while they play a video game. This device is also capable of tests for amblyopia that can lead to permanent blindness if not treated on time.

Image 2: Mind Map for creativity and innovation in organization

(Source: Created by Author)

I learned from the entire study that innovations are crucial for a successful business. Technological innovation is essential in order to match the technical advantage of the world; administrative innovation is important for leading the employee of the organization so that they can motivate the team members for suggesting new ideas. Moreover, I also learned that process innovation is the outcome of the best administrative innovative approach without which the existing process for accomplishing the business cannot be possible. In addition to that, I also came to know that every business has started their journey from scratch and with the help of creativity and innovation they became successful in recent times. It is also come to my consideration that business that become successful through their innovation has the most satisfied working personnel and customers and they also do not need to promote their brands as their experience in the market and effective word-of-mouth advertisement does everything. Furthermore, from the entire study I also learn about the key ingredients to successful innovation that are leadership quality of the high designated people, focus on the organisational goals, entrepreneurship quality and the ability to implement the creativity for better productivity and profitability.

Amabile, T., 2012. Componential theory of creativity (pp. 3-4). Boston, MA: Harvard Business School.

Anderson, N., Potocnik, K. and Zhou, J., 2014. Innovation and creativity in organizations a state-of-the-science review, prospective commentary, and guiding framework. Journal of Management, 40(5), pp.1297-1333.

Ayala, J.C. and Manzano, G., 2014. The resilience of the entrepreneur. Influence on the success of the business. A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Economic Psychology, 42, pp.126-135.

Barnett, B.G., Hall, G.E., Berg, J.H. and Camarena, M.M., 2014. A typology of partnerships for promoting innovation. Journal of School Leadership, 9, pp.484-509.

Bucherer, E., Eisert, U. and Gassmann, O., 2012. Towards systematic business model innovation: lessons from product innovation management.Creativity and Innovation Management, 21(2), pp.183-198.

Camison, C. and Villar-Lopez, A., 2014. Organizational innovation as an enabler of technological innovation capabilities and firm performance. Journal of Business Research, 67(1), pp.2891-2902.

Caniels, M.C. and Rietzschel, E.F., 2013. A special issue of creativity and innovation management: Organizing creativity: Creativity and innovation under constraints. Creativity and Innovation Management, 22(1), pp.100-102.

Carland, J.W. and Carland, J.C., 2015. A model of potential entrepreneurship: Profiles and educational implications. Journal of Small Business Strategy, 8(1), pp.1-14.

Cerne, M., Jaklic, M. and Skerlavaj, M., 2013. Authentic leadership, creativity, and innovation: A multilevel perspective. Leadership, 9(1), pp.63-85.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. and Sawyer, K., 2014. Shifting the focus from individual to organizational creativity. In The Systems Model of Creativity(pp. 67-71). Springer Netherlands.

Davenport, T.H., 2013. Process innovation: reengineering work through information technology. Harvard Business Press.

de Araujo Burcharth, A.L., Knudsen, M.P. and Sondergaard, H.A., 2014. Neither invented nor shared here: The impact and management of attitudes for the adoption of open innovation practices. Technovation, 34(3), pp.149-161.

Dietrich, A. and Haider, H., 2015. Human creativity, evolutionary algorithms, and predictive representations: The mechanics of thought trials.Psychonomic bulletin & review, 22(4), pp.897-915.

Fiet, J.O., Norton, W.I. and Clouse, V.G., 2013. Search and discovery by repeatedly successful entrepreneurs. International Small Business Journal,31(8), pp.890-913.

Fisk, P., 2014. Gamechangers: Creating innovative strategies for business and brands. John Wiley & Sons.

Ganter, A. and Hecker, A., 2014. Configurational paths to organizational innovation: qualitative comparative analyses of antecedents and contingencies. Journal of Business Research, 67(6), pp.1285-1292.

Gaut, B., 2012. Creativity and rationality. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 70(3), pp.259-270.

Guler, I. and Nerkar, A., 2012. The impact of global and local cohesion on innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. Strategic Management Journal,33(5), pp.535-549.

Hollen, R., Van Den Bosch, F.A. and Volberda, H.W., 2013. The role of management innovation in enabling technological process innovation: An inter‐organizational perspective. European Management Review, 10(1), pp.35-50.

Im, S., Montoya, M.M. and Workman, J.P., 2013. Antecedents and consequences of creativity in product innovation teams. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 30(1), pp.170-185.

Kolker, E., Ozdemir, V. and Kolker, E., 2016. How Healthcare Can Refocus on Its Super-Customers (Patients, n= 1) and Customers (Doctors and Nurses) by Leveraging Lessons from Amazon, Uber, and Watson. OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology, 20(6), pp.329-333.

Lee, S.M., Olson, D.L. and Trimi, S., 2012. Co-innovation: convergenomics, collaboration, and co-creation for organizational values. Management Decision, 50(5), pp.817-831.

Litchfield, R.C., Ford, C.M. and Gentry, R.J., 2014. Linking individual creativity to organizational innovation. The Journal of Creative Behavior.

Oravec, J.A., 2015. Gamification and multigamification in the workplace: Expanding the ludic dimensions of work and challenging the work/play dichotomy. Cyberpsychology, 9(3).

Payton, F.C., 2015. Workplace Design: The Millennials Are Not Coming—They're Here. Design Management Review, 26(1), pp.54-63.

Qian, H., 2013. Diversity versus tolerance: The social drivers of innovation and entrepreneurship in US cities. Urban Studies, 50(13), pp.2718-2735.

Reinhold, K., Tint, P., Tuulik, V. and Saarik, S., 2015. Innovations at workplace: improvement of ergonomics. Engineering Economics, 60(5).

Rice, A.K., 2013. Productivity and social organization: The Ahmedabad experiment: Technical innovation, work organization and management. Routledge.

Runco, M.A., 2014. Creativity: Theories and themes: Research, development, and practice. Elsevier.

Sacramento, C.A., Fay, D. and West, M.A., 2013. Workplace duties or opportunities? Challenge stressors, regulatory focus, and creativity.Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 121(2), pp.141-157.

Sarooghi, H., Libaers, D. and Burkemper, A., 2015. Examining the relationship between creativity and innovation: A meta-analysis of organizational, cultural, and environmental factors. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(5), pp.714-731.

Slatten, T. and Mehmetoglu, M., 2015. The effects of transformational leadership and perceived creativity on innovation behavior in the hospitality industry. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 14(2), pp.195-219.

Somech, A. and Drach-Zahavy, A., 2013. Translating team creativity to innovation implementation the role of team composition and climate for innovation. Journal of Management, 39(3), pp.684-708.

Tomyuk, O.N. and Томюк, О.Н., 2014. The Understanding of Creativity and its Criterions in Classical and Non-Classical Philosophy.

Yesil, S. and Sozbilir, F., 2013. An empirical investigation into the impact of personality on individual innovation behaviour in the workplace. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 81, pp.540-551.

Yoshida, D.T., Sendjaya, S., Hirst, G. and Cooper, B., 2014. Does servant leadership foster creativity and innovation? A multi-level mediation study of identification and prototypicality. Journal of Business Research, 67(7), pp.1395-1404.